3 Ways To Introduce Your Characters In The First Few Lines

This post is about how writers should introduce their characters in the first few lines. It includes three tips to help you do it as well as you can.

Thin Slicing

We all thin slice. No, I’m not referring to your culinary skills. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, thin slicing is defined as our unconscious ability ‘to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience’. This is what allows you to suss out people instinctively only seconds after meeting them.

The same holds true for your readers. Because they will be thin slicing the characters in your novel, how you introduce and describe your characters in those first few lines is critical.

Wasted Opportunities

First-time authors often make the mistake of introducing a character by describing physical appearance. While it tells readers what a character looks like, it’s a lower form of storytelling. You have only a few seconds to create a snapshot that shows the reader exactly who the character is.

[Use our Character Creation Kit to create great characters for your stories.]

Meet Sheriff Elliot West

Consider these two introductions:

Sheriff West I

The dry glare spilled around him, making his silhouette painful to look at. He kept the chapped saloon doors open with his sausage fingers, the chunky gold ring on his little finger glinting. Ol’ Jim’s honky-tonk melody faltered. Satisfied, he sauntered into the saloon, the doors clapping to behind him.
‘Howdy, ma’am,’ he said, easing his hat onto the counter. He licked his thumb and rubbed the spotless sheriff’s badge.
Sally fidgeted behind the counter.
‘Elliot,’ she nodded. It was her small rebellion.
He fingered his badge. She refused to give in.
‘Make it a double,’ he said.
‘Whiskey?’
His eyes locked with hers and then slid away again, but not before she saw the dark flash. Of course it would be whiskey. Of course it would be a double. Of course it would be on the house.

Sheriff West II

The dry glare spilled around him, silhouetting his frame in the doorway for a moment. He strode into the saloon, his loose-limbed gait keeping time with Ol’ Jim’s honky-tonk melody. He tossed his hat with its sheriff’s badge onto the counter in a puff of dust.
‘Sally,’ he grinned around the matchstick in his mouth.
‘Elliot,’ she said, pouring whiskey into a foggy-glassed tumbler.
‘How’s business?’ he asked.
She tipped the bottle to make it a double, but he stayed her hand with calloused fingers.
‘That’ll do, thanks.’
‘I can give it to you on the house, you know.’
‘Nah. It’s not the money. Steady head, steady hands.’